


Takete

by obbel



Category: Latin American Celebrities RPF, Reggaeton RPF
Genre: AU, Basque Country, Call Me By Your Name AU, Linguistics, M/M, Spain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 03:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obbel/pseuds/obbel
Summary: Balvin seizes his shoulders and instead of pushing him off, he spins Maluma around and pushes him into the guardrail of the balcony. He hopes it breaks, and they both fall over the edge. That would be preferable to knowing he let this happen, to knowing he let this smug, entitled little teenager get under his skin.Call Me By Your NameAU, except not like that.





	Takete

On his first day in Donostia, Balvin sleeps.

It’s rude, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to get out of bed. He’s spent fifteen hours on a plane, and it’s drained him to an extent he didn’t think possible. He’s grateful, of course, for this opportunity to leave the chaos of home behind him and delve deep into his studies, but the stress of Medellín hasn’t prepared him for the monotony of sitting still, confined to his seat, with too much time to think.

He arrives in the late afternoon, taxi bumping along an unpaved road, to an old farmhouse. The stone walls are covered in ivy to match the verdant surroundings, all trees and lush, green grass. The mountains are visible just beyond the pasture, peeking out from behind the clouds. It’s picturesque, idyllic Basque countryside, something he might send on a postcard back to his family. And maybe he would, if he thought it had any chance of arriving, but for now he just wants to get out of the car and onto something horizontal.

He pays the taxi driver and steps out of the car, greeted by a flurry of activity. Dr. Londoño and Dr. Arias receive him warmly, bringing him into their home, already full of people. They speak quickly, with their domestic help and other assorted guests, chatting away in a mix of Basque, Spanish, French, and something else Balvin understands but couldn’t quite speak. Catalan, maybe.

Balvin gets through the niceties, the hellos and the thank yous, before being allowed to escape to a small room upstairs. A thin, sulking teenager, the doctors’ son, appears to carry his bags. Balvin ignores the passive aggressive comments about how this was _his_ room before Balvin’s arrival. Even if he had the energy, Balvin wouldn’t care about the hostility towards his presence here. He tunes out the jabber, and in seconds he’s snoring, face down on the bed, shoes still on his feet.

The son comes back later, after the sun has set, and Balvin is startled awake by a loud bang on the floor. In the darkness, he can make out the son holding a book. He must have dropped it.

“We’re being called for dinner,” he tells Balvin, standing awkwardly by what used to be his bed. He’s still holding the book, clearly waiting for Balvin to follow his instructions and get up, come eat. Balvin doesn’t. He kicks the son out of his room and goes back to sleep.

Balvin doesn’t resurface until the next morning, finally feeling human again. He’s presented with a breakfast spread good enough to rival anything from back home, and he has to refrain from stuffing himself until he’s too full to walk. He notices, however, the distinct lack of fruits at the table. They are too far from the tropics to have any of the things Balvin misses most. No mango, no lulo, no mamoncillo.

As if on cue, Dr. Londoño offers him a glass of apricot juice, made fresh from their orchards, and Balvin gratefully accepts. It is sweet and smooth, no tartness, no pinch of sour like he’s used to. A little reminder that he is somewhere else in the world.

Balvin thanks Dr. Londoño, and inquires about the town. The son, whose name he can’t commit to remembering, pipes up and offers to show Balvin around, and soon Balvin finds himself on a borrowed bicycle, following him along the winding sea coast into the city square.

They sit outdoors on uncomfortable metal chairs at a little cafe, Balvin with a glass of white wine and the son with a soda. Balvin tries to make conversation, but all his questions are answered with a boring, teenage apathy that leaves a bad taste in Balvin’s mouth. There’s nothing cute about his premature cynicism, his naivete.

He tells Balvin there’s nothing to do in the city, and Balvin laughs because the alternative is to smack him upside the head, to take his face and shove it into all the architecture surrounding them, and then bury it in the white sand on one of the three beaches here. The alternative is to stick his fingers in this boy’s ears and clean them out so he can hear the language that surrounds them, a language older than Spain, older than Europe. A language this petulant child can speak, effortlessly, Balvin knows. He’s heard him switch, without pause, from Basque to Spanish to French, and back and forth, in the same conversation.

Balvin laughs because somehow he’s gotten stuck babysitting. But that’s not his responsibility. Balvin gets on his bike and leaves. _“Chao,”_ he says, and doesn’t bother to look back.

Balvin tries to avoid him after that, but it’s impossible. He’s always lurking somewhere nearby, an annoying shadow that tails him everywhere he goes. Balvin goes to play cards in town, and there he is, two steps behind him, pulling up a chair to the table despite the fact that he wasn’t invited, doesn’t know how to play. Balvin plays soccer with the locals, and there he is, playing for the other team and scoring goals, goddammit.

Balvin can’t even work in peace. He and Dr. Londoño spend hours pouring over the new Basque texts, cataloguing and checking and cross referencing, looking for the missing puzzle pieces, the hidden clues that make it all make sense, that give some explanation as to where this language came from, how it evolved. Dr. Arias comes in often to assist, as she herself is Basque, and a polyglot translator. She is immensely helpful, a wealth of knowledge, but Balvin can’t stop himself from resenting her at times, because whenever she appears, her son is soon to follow.

One afternoon, when they’re especially stressed, having been working on one infuriating syntactic structure for hours with little progress, he shuffles into the office and plants himself on the couch with his Walkman, ignoring them until it suits his fancy to badger his father into explaining what they’re working on. He offers his opinion on everything, even though no one asks him, and the worst part is that he turns out to be right. Balvin can see the smugness on his face as he eats up his father’s praise. Balvin begrudgingly offers his congratulations as well. He will admit that they’d been stuck, and having a fresh set of eyes is always useful. He wishes this kid would go away, though. They would have solved the problem without him.

On the contrary, of course, he starts to follow Balvin even more closely after that. He’s given up all pretense of subtlety, just announces that he’s going wherever Balvin is going, doing whatever Balvin is doing. And Balvin just, _lets him._

Balvin doesn’t know how this happened, how he allowed this happen but here they are, swimming in the river after spending all morning together. He must think that he’s earned it. Juan, that is. Balvin knows his name now. Balvin knows entirely too much about him now.

Like his stupid nickname. Maluma, they call him. It’s not a name; it’s a linguistic experiment. Balvin had told him this one night when they were both in Dr. Londoño’s study, not doing work anymore. Balvin, tired from the monotony of cataloguing manuscripts by hand, had sprawled out on the couch, languid, sleepy, but too comfortable to move to his bed.

“Juan,” Balvin had said, needing to break the silence, to motivate himself to get up. “We should go to sleep. It’s late.”

“Why do you call me that?” he had asked, rhetorically, rolling his eyes. “Only you and my mother call me that. Call me Maluma.”

Balvin had laughed and rolled over, propping his head up on his fist, arm making a triangle as his elbow sunk into the soft leather of the couch. “Because Maluma isn’t a name.”

“Yes, it is. It’s _my_ name.”

“No,” Balvin countered. “It’s a made-up word. They used it in some experiment thirty years ago. Come here. Give me a piece of paper.”

He’d obeyed, though he had an attitude about it, grumbling about how he wasn't the housekeeper.

“And a pen,” Balvin had added, once he’d gotten the paper. This was met with some additional complaints, and Balvin watched him shuffle over to his father’s desk, pick up a pen, and then toss it at Balvin, who was forced to sit up and snatch it out of the air, lest it hit him in the face.

“Behave yourself,” Balvin had told him. “And come here.”

He did come, dragging his feet, and had plopped down on the couch, almost on top of Balvin. Balvin pushed him away, needing the space to write, but he came right back, sliding down the couch to attach himself to Balvin’s side, to watch what he was doing. Balvin drew a cloud and a star on the paper.

“Look,” Balvin said. “Which one is maluma, and which one is takete?”

 _“I_ am Maluma,” he said. “That one is takete.” He pointed at the star.

 _“You_ are impossible.” Balvin pushed him again, but he just grinned and didn’t move, dead weight heavy against Balvin. “But you’re right.” His smile got even bigger. “Almost everyone says the star is takete and the cloud is maluma. Why?”

“I don’t know. It just feels right.”

“It’s synesthesia. When your senses overlap.” Balvin had started to explain but was quickly cut off.

“I know what synesthesia is.”

“Fine,” Balvin had said, standing up and tossing the paper aside. “Let’s go to sleep then, since you already know everything.” And he’d marched off to his room, leaving the boy on the couch alone. Balvin had fallen asleep quickly, forgetting the whole triviality, only remembering the next day when he returned to the study with the intent to find the paper and throw it away. But someone else had gotten there first.

“Maluma!”

As he turns to look, Balvin splashes him with the cold river water. Maluma laughs and dives, grabbing Balvin’s waist and trying to drag him under. Balvin lets him, although it would be easy to resist, and they collide together in the water, Maluma completely on top of him, trying to force him under. Balvin concedes, lets Maluma hold his head underwater and win for a split second, before shaking him off with ease. Then he retaliates, holding Maluma down longer than necessary, his hands pressing on Maluma’s thin shoulders and their bare skin touching until Balvin has to let him go. Maluma pops up like a buoy, coughing and spluttering, but still smiles through it all. Balvin swims the bank and pulls himself out of the water. Maluma follows.

Sitting on the edge of the river, they are too close to each other. Balvin can feel Maluma’s thigh, still wet, against his. Balvin shifts away, and Maluma lets him. But then he opens his mouth.

“I love this,” Maluma says, and Balvin thinks, oh no, but he takes the bait anyway.

“What?”

“This.” Maluma gestures to himself, Balvin, the space in between them, and he moves to close it, but Balvin stops him. He regrets following Maluma’s lead, and he doesn’t reply, just sits in silence and stares at the river. He feels the sunshine drying them out, heating them up.

“Don’t,” Balvin says finally. He can’t do this, not with Maluma so close and so bare. He won’t be able to stop.

Maluma, of course, doesn’t listen. He presses closer, closer, their legs touching again, then their hands. And then his hand is on Balvin’s leg, and Balvin puts an end to it because they’re speeding quickly towards a point of no return.

“Don’t,” Balvin says again, and the look on Maluma’s face tells him that he’s in for an earful, another rant about how he’s not doing anything even though he is very clearly _doing something_. But Balvin cuts him off before he can start. “You need to stop. We can’t do this, and you know it.”

Much to his surprise, Maluma stays quiet. He looks at Balvin but doesn’t say anything, doing what he’s told without a word to the contrary, maybe for the first time in his life, Balvin thinks. He lets Balvin take him home and doesn’t push the issue. He even gives Balvin the space he asks for, leaving the dinner table that night and not reappearing until breakfast the next day.

He keeps up the cold-shoulder act, and for three blessedly uncomplicated weeks, Balvin is alone.

Alone eating, alone swimming, alone working. He gets so much done that Dr. Londoño tells him to take a break, and he goes into town, unaccompanied, to meet his friends of an appropriate age. Laughing and drinking wine and dancing to American pop music, Balvin thinks he’s in the clear. It was just a phase, just a silly, childhood crush that fizzled out before it could ruin both of their lives.

Until.

Balvin comes home late to find the note under his door. It’s a star and a cloud, the same one he drew for Maluma in his father’s office. Underneath, in painstakingly neat handwriting, it says _I miss you. I’m sorry._

Balvin stares at the paper in his hand, then crumples it up and throws it against the floor. It makes an unsatisfactorily light sound, then rolls under the bed.

“Fuck,” Balvin sighs and collapses onto the bed, legs still hanging off the edge. He closes his eyes, staring at the inside of his eyelids as they shift from black to red as he gets angrier and angrier, imagining all reasons why this little piece of paper has appeared here, now, ruining the tranquility he’s achieved over the past month. Maluma is trying to manipulate him, he thinks. Trying to win his sympathy and get what he wants.

How selfish.

How entitled.

How dare he.

Balvin gets himself so worked up over this stupid note that he can’t lay still anymore. He dives under the bed and retrieves the paper before storming through the door that connects his room to Maluma’s.

Maluma is sitting at his desk with the lamp turned on, the only light in the room. He is still writing, but turns to look when he hears Balvin barge in. He smiles, but it quickly falls when he sees how angry Balvin is.

“What is this?” Balvin gets in Maluma’s face, towering over him, and doesn’t let Maluma get up from the chair.

“It’s just a note. On the picture you drew for me. It’s how I feel.” Maluma doesn’t shrink away, but he looks at his pen rather than at Balvin when he talks.

“I...what? Why? What are you trying to do here? I told you to leave me alone!” Balvin’s voice raises, slowly but steadily, and Maluma makes a _shh_ gesture at him, which only makes Balvin angrier. Balvin shakes his head and mutters under his breath, hating that Maluma is being the reasonable one while he is on the verge of waking up the house.

“Fine,” he says, and he all but throws Maluma out the door and onto the balcony.

It’s cool outside, and the stars are out shining. The irony of this romantic atmosphere is not lost on Balvin.

“Don’t do this to me,” Balvin starts again, fighting to keep his voice level.

“Why? I’m not doing anything. I just gave you a little note. What’s the big deal?”

“I told you to leave me alone,” Balvin says, and he tries to end the conversation there, but Maluma doesn’t let him. He grabs Balvin’s arm. Balvin shakes him off, and Maluma takes it again. Balvin lets him this time but can’t meet Maluma’s eyes. He looks at the ground below them instead.

“Why not? Why won’t you let me?”

“Let you what?”

Balvin quickly realizes his mistake, and he cuts Maluma off, raising a hand and waving it frantically. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

“Why not? You don’t want to know what I want to do to you? I want to do so many things.”

“No,” Balvin groans, voice unsteady, and it sounds desperate and unconvincing even to his own ears. He turns to look at Maluma, and that is another mistake. He looks so hopeful, eyes big and pleading in the starlight. He still has his hand around Balvin’s forearm.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t. Because it's not right.”

“Why not?” He presses, literally and figuratively, hand tightening around Balvin. They are too close, and Balvin closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, Maluma has gotten even closer.

“Why not? Why not? Give me an answer.”

Balvin sighs. “No.”

“That’s bullshit! Why not?”

Balvin should leave, should unwind Maluma’s hand from around his arm and go back inside. He stays where he is.

“Don’t ask me again because I can’t tell you no anymore.”

Maluma doesn’t ask again. This admission of guilt or weakness or whatever it is is what he was fucking waiting for, chipping away at all this time because it’s not even one second after Balvin stops talking before Maluma is kissing him.

Balvin seizes his shoulders and instead of pushing him off, he spins Maluma around and pushes him into the guardrail of the balcony. He hopes it breaks, and they both fall over the edge. That would be preferable to knowing he let this happen, to knowing he let this smug, entitled little teenager get under his skin.

Balvin kisses him back, more teeth than anything else, trying to convey how angry he is, how much he doesn’t want this even as he knows he’s lying to himself and to Maluma. He kisses Maluma’s lips and his throat and his collarbone, moves his hands from Maluma’s shoulders to his hips and shoves those against the rail as well. He only stops when Maluma starts to touch him, too. His hand on Balvin’s neck, like an electric shock, brings him back to his senses, and then he’s flying backwards, suddenly trying to put as much space between them as he possibly can. He backs up until he hits the door, arms outstretched to keep Maluma at bay.

“Stop!” he yells, not caring how loud he is. “Stop!”

“Why?!” Maluma, equally loud, throws his hands up and spins around, resting his arms on the railing. His head hangs between his shoulders, and he gives a dramatic sigh.

“Why? Why? I know you want this. You know I want this! Why do we have to stop?” He twists his neck to glare at Balvin, still against the glass.

“Because I can’t do this,” Balvin says, dropping his arms. “I know you don’t understand. You’re too young.” Maluma huffs again at this, but Balvin ignores him and continues. “I’m not the one for you.”

“You’re scared,” Maluma says, and he twists the rest of his body around to face Balvin again.

Balvin laughs, body relaxing against the door as he lets it support the weight of his shoulder. He angles one hip outwards, contrapposto. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are, you’re scared of how good this could be.” Maluma is indignant, and it just makes Balvin laugh more.

“Good try, okay. I don’t know where you heard that line, but I get it. You had to try, and I applaud you for that. But it’s not going to happen. It can’t. You’re a good kid, but you’re still a kid, and I’m not going to be the one to fuck that up for you.”

Balvin slides all the way down to sit against the door, legs stretched out in front of him. He gestures for Maluma to come, and Maluma hesitates a moment, but then he attaches himself to Balvin’s side, like always. Balvin hugs him in closely, speaks into his hair.

“I’m not the one for you,” he repeats himself. “You need to respect that.”

“Fine, whatever.”

Balvin can feel Maluma tense up, and he just holds him until Maluma gives up and relaxes, although not before landing a couple soft punches against Balvin’s stomach. Balvin flicks his ear in retaliation, and that’s the end of that. They stay out on the balcony until Maluma falls asleep, his head heavy against Balvin’s shoulder, and Balvin wakes him up to usher him back inside. He puts Maluma to bed, tucking him in before going back to his own room. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but the sun through his bedroom window wakes him up early the next morning.

Balvin only has a week left in Spain, and it passes uneventfully, tidying up loose ends with Dr. Londoño and trying to eek every last bit of knowledge out of Dr. Arias. Maluma, he thinks, has been avoiding him. He disappears after meals, and Balvin has seen him hanging around more with one of the local girls. Natalia, her name is.

He does show up, though, on Balvin’s last day. Before he leaves, Maluma comes and finds him in his room.

“This is my room again,” he says, hanging around uncertainly in the doorway, and Balvin does an exaggerated bow, sweeping arm movements ushering him inside. Maluma rolls his eyes and stays where he is, but only for a moment. Without saying a word, he marches over to Balvin and hugs him, arms squeezing tight around his middle. Balvin hugs back, and kisses the top of his head.

“Be safe,” Maluma says, quietly. “Have a good flight.”

Balvin hugs him harder, and then lets go. “Bye,” he says. Maluma doesn’t respond, just waves as he walks away, disappearing off to wherever he came from, probably back to the friends that are waiting for him.

Balvin doesn’t see him again until he's sitting in the taxi, suitcases loaded up and ready to go. He turns around in his seat to say goodbye one last time, and there he is, standing with his parents and waving.

 _“Chao,”_ Balvin yells out the window, waving until they become little specs in the distance as the taxi bumps along the gravel, bringing him closer to the airport and the plane that will take him back home.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything that didn't happen in _Call Me By Your Name,_ aka grown-ass adults taking responsibility when it comes to horny teenagers.


End file.
